7 Great Superhero TV Shows That Broke The Rules

When people watch superhero TV shows, they often expect to see the same thing. Often, it is formulaic, with the hero fighting a villain, and a moral lesson is tacked on at the end of each episode. However, as Spider-Noir showed in 2026, things are not always so cut and dry, and sometimes a superhero TV show can subvert everyone’s expectations. There are some cases where Marvel attempts to do something completely different, and when it works, it ends up as some of the studio’s best streaming series. There are also other cases where the superhero shows take things to the extreme, which deliver something no one was expecting.

From shooting shows in black and white to delivering nonlinear storytelling and ultra-violent stories, here is a look at seven great superhero TV shows that broke all the rules.

7) Spider-Noir

Spider-Noir roared onto the scene with a Prime Video series, and it did something no other live-action Sony release has done with Spider-Man properties outside its MCU partnership. It delivered a series that succeeds on every level. For one thing, the series changes some things about Spider-Noir, as it is no longer Peter Parker and is now Ben Reilly. He is still a private investigator in 1930s New York City, but with Nicolas Cage as the hero, he looks nothing like any other version of the character.

This ends up as a genuine noir genre piece, with the detective tropes up front and the superhero story secondary, and being a superhero barely even matters. The fact that it was shot to be screened in black and white was a great decision, but it also has a color release for people unwilling to watch anything in black and white. It is also dark, with murder and torture, and a hero who is willing to kill. Spider-Noir goes completely off the rails in the best ways possible.

6) Werewolf by Night

Before Spider-Noir offered fans a chance to watch a superhero series in black and white, Werewolf by Night did it first. Yes, this is only one episode and is more similar to a movie than a show, but it was on Disney+ as a special presentation, and it really is a one-episode streaming special. That said, this is not so much a superhero series as it is a monster story, with Werewolf by Night battling monster hunters.

The series also brings in Man-Thing as a scene-stealing character and Elsa Bloodstone as a tough-as-nails monster killer who is willing to protect those monsters who offer no threat. The black-and-white version is what fans need to watch, as it is beautifully shot and harkens back to the 1930s Universal Horror monster movies. However, like Spider-Noir, there is also a color version for those who refuse to see the beauty in black and white.

5) X-Men ’97

X-Men ’97 is a Disney+ animated series that is a direct continuation of the 1990s X-Men: The Animated Series cartoon (1992-1997). That makes X-Men ’97 technically the sixth season of the series. However, what this series does that breaks all the rules is that it is very much an adult-oriented storyline. Yes, it is based on the children’s cartoon and offers up nostalgia, but there are a lot of bad things happening here.

This first season presented the Genosha massacre, and countless mutants were murdered in the series. The series also killed off popular characters like Gambit, and leaves the mutants to mourn their fallen teammates. These deaths carry emotional weight and prove that even an animated kids’ series can deliver mature, devastating storytelling.

4) Moon Knight

Moon Knight is a six-episode miniseries on Disney+ that did something that no other superhero series has ever dared to do. The series cut away nearly every time a superhero action scene was about to take place. This could have doomed the series, but it ended up as a fun tactic. At the same time, it is also one that helps the show deliver a poignant and nuanced dramatic story about a man dealing with the voices in his head.

Just like in the comics, Moon Knight has distinct personalities, and the viewers of the Disney+ show only follow one of them, the average guy, Steven Grant. Whenever he turns into Moon Knight to fight villains, the show immediately cuts to after the fight, and Grant retakes control. The same thing happens when he turns into mercenary Marc Spector. Add in a bizarre moment where he goes to the underworld, and this is a superhero show that is unlike almost any other in Marvel history.

3) Legion

While Moon Knight deals with mental health issues thanks to Marc Spector and his DID, Legion deals with mental health in a very different manner. Legion broke all the rules from the start by not even revealing to the mainstream audiences that this was a superhero show at all. In fact, while it hinted at the fact, it never connects to the X-Men until the final season, when Charles Xavier finally shows up as David’s father.

Instead, showrunner Noah Hawley created a show about a young man in a mental hospital who believes he is mentally ill, without knowing that he is, in fact, a mutant. Soon, he starts to find himself under attack by other forces, including the sinister Shadow King, and things start to go off the rails. This never once feels like a superhero series, and the fact that it is a dark and experimental series makes it one of the best on television, but one that refused to deliver what comic book fans might have expected.

2) WandaVision

WandaVision was the first Disney+ streaming series from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also proved that these shows would be extremely different from any other superhero show or movie on the market. While Wanda Maximoff and the Vision were from the MCU movies, they were presented here in a manner completely unlike their previous appearances in the Avengers movies. For one thing, they lived in a sitcom world.

What worked best was that every episode looked like a sitcom from a decade in the past, and each subsequent episode chose a sitcom from the next decade. These went from The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched to The Brady Bunch and Malcolm in the Middle. By the final episodes, things turned into a little more of a superhero show, but it was the early episodes that ensured that WandaVision would go down in history as one of the best Marvel shows ever made.

1) The Boys

The Boys is based on the Dynamite Entertainment series (formerly WildStorm) that sees superheroes as selfish and destructive individuals, and the Boys as a group put together to keep them in line and take them out if needed. The series aired on Prime Video and told the story from the comics, with slight changes to make it work better as a scripted series. Karl Urban stars as Billy Butcher, the leader of the Boys, while Antony Starr is brilliant as the ultra-powerful Homelander.

The idea of superheroes using their powers for selfish reasons is unique for a superhero TV show, and the violence, gore, and even sexual assault that the series depicts are unlike anything that one would expect from a comic book series. The Boys’ meta-commentary on the superhero genre targets real institutions, including celebrity culture, corporate corruption, and political extremism, using graphic violence and shock to make its points.

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